The present invention relates to a method and system for supply chain or supply network control, and more particularly to a method and system for determining and controlling the fillrate in a supply chain or supply network for controlling the flow and balance of goods from point of origin to a point of consumption.
In a supply chain or network, raw material, products and components etc. are moved between nodes in the chain during the production process, and due to costs associated with holding inventories including storage costs, obsolescence etc., an inventory replenishment system is required for obtaining small resupply deliveries to be made just as they are needed.
Further, an efficient logistics control and production scheduling and an equalised flow from a source to a destination in a supply chain are desired in order to balance demand for products with plant capacity and availability of inputs. Inbound materials and components must be scheduled to fit into the production process. The production process itself is scheduled to fulfill existing and planned orders. Manufactured products must be scheduled for shipment to wholesalers, retailers, and customers. For example, if the firm is running a special advertising campaign to promote its product, the additional products must be available for sale. Depending on these variations in product demand it is difficult to obtain an efficient production scheduling to fulfill the order requirements of the end customers.
In prior art systems for supply chain control, different activities are linked by communication in order to co-ordinate and managing logistics. A customer buys merchandise in a store having a scanner at the checkout counter linked directly to the chain""s wholesaler so that it has instantaneous information as to what is being sold. Thus, the store can be restocked when necessary rather than having a large inventory at the store. In the next step the wholesaler orders merchandise from a producer based on information collected from its stores. However, the supplier or producer does not know about the real demands from the stores, just a total demand from each store associated with that wholesaler. Several wholesalers of different chain stores may order from the same producer.
For example, two stores associated with a first wholesaler may have uniform demands from customers over the time for a particular product but on different levels. A second wholesaler has two other associated stores also having uniform demands from its customers over the time for that particular product but on other levels. Each shop needs a particular quantity of products within a time interval. The quantity and/or the time interval can be different for each shop. Information about the demands from each shop is received at its wholesaler. A predetermined order quantity is used when the wholesalers order products from the producer within a time interval. As for the shops the time interval as well as the order quantity may differ between the different wholesalers. Thus, even if the demands from the customers are almost uniform over the time the producer receives orders, which vary sometimes very much. It is, therefore, difficult to obtain an efficient logistics control and production scheduling and an equalised flow from a source to a destination in a supply chain.
In order to improve the production planning and flow of products ect in a supply chain, demand forecasting has been used. Information concerning delivery of products to customers and receipt of raw materials or components at a producer for production are relevant in order to make good decisions. Further, customers"" orders are needed for production control and scheduling, and for co-ordinating and managing logistics. However, demand forecasting is a time consuming, expensive and cumbersome process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,707 discloses a system for supporting management decisions associated with manufacturing of service supply chains, allowing various decision makers in the supply chain to view the supply chain from their own perspective, and understand the effect that their decisions will have on the supply chain. The decision support system provide a server side including a decision support system database that interfaces with model engines that perform analytical processes on data to determine requirements and make projections. A client side is also provided, which includes decision support frames that present the various view points available in the system to the users.
Although various decision makers in the supply chain can view the supply chain from their own perspective, i.e only separate parts of the supply chain status are shown. Thus, the possibility of obtaining an efficient logistics control, production scheduling and an equalised flow from a source to a destination in a supply chain are delimited, because the basis of a decision comprises only parts of information about the status of the supply chain.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and system for supply chain or supply network control, in order to obtain efficient flow and balance of goods from point of origin to a point of consumption.
This is accomplished by the method and system for determining and controlling the fillrate in a supply chain or supply network according to the invention, wherein a market tank balance (MTBCL) is determined for the product in said supply chain or network; the filtrate quantity for the product in the supply chain or network is determined by calculating the difference between the market tank balance (MTBCL) and a preferred balance (PBCL) of products in the market tank; and if the fillrate quantity is lower than a predetermined threshold, the fillrate quantity is increased o n the current level by in creasing the delivery amount of said product to the market tank on the level; or if the fillrate quantity is higher than a predetermined threshold, the fillrate quantity is reduced on said particular level by reducing the delivery amount of said product to the market tank on the current level or increasing the outflow of said product to a market tank for the product on a customer level.
Further, by measuring the fillrate in a supply chain or network allows any n ode in the supply network full downstream transparency, i.e. a change of the fillrate in the lowest level in the network is apparent immediately on all levels upstream in the network.
An advantage of the method and system for determining and controlling the fillrate in a supply chain is that if the fillrate is determined to be low in the supply chain, a producer can take a decision of producing more such products. In another case, the filtrate is determined to be high for a particular product in the supply chain and the producer can take a decision of decreasing the production of that particular product for increasing the production capacity for another product.